The St. Johns herald., 1887-11-10
DINING WITH AI FIXING.
The earbaric Pornp Of India Transported
 fn Hr<

 The earbaric Por,p Of India Transported
 to the West.
 Ny fortunc has never carrie memuch nrccng thc great, but have dined with q ] az. albeit. King deposed.
 When ESbal ood Dawlah, the ex-King CT Oudh, came over to England 10 press lis claims l was introduced to him by Iir. Hector, who hal married a dear ana charming friend of mine and who lad been % years merchant in Bagdad. Henceit was that a. Mr. Electors friend, he being also the Kins's-I was included in a famous dinner gireI by Ekbal ood Dawian al his house in Brompton.
 II was a dinner entirely in the Eastern style, where We sat on the floor and ate witlfour fingers.
 Mr. Hector was very earnest in im- pressing ea his wife and me the most sersIpalous attention to two things-to touch nothing with our left hands-do we not all remember the men in the Arabian Nights whose right hands were wrapped in their cloaks, and who thus were obliged to eat with their ieft?-and not to soil our fingers beyond the first joint.
 We all sat on cushions on the floor. where also the dinner was laid. Sir Henry Layard, Sir Henry Rawllnson, Capt. Felix Jones, late Resident at Bush ire and his wife, a pretty Chaldean and a Nestorian Christian; Prof. Vambery. and ourselves formed the party.
 We first had a couche of rice on our plates, on which were afterward placeI all the meats of the table. When the King wished to honor us he scooped up some rice and laid it with his own hands on the plate designated.
 Wishing to specially honor Mrs. Hec- tor he made up ball of rice and put it into her mouth.
 do not remember the dishes besides Ra5obs and pheasants dressed to look like pears; but the food was beyond measure delicious.
 After dinner gorgeous creatures, dressed in white with bullion fringe to their sashes, broughtround basin, rose water. sc nted soap, and a fringed and embroidered towel, when we all washed our hands and were clean. Then came the tu n of the servants.
 Though a water drinker for his own rart, the King allowed wiRe-notably cha npae e.ne--to these who liked it. And what struck me as specially royal and fiae was that when the servants began their meal he went in and gravely served them himself with wine-A bottle of caamPagne in each hand.
 Mrs. Hector and were rather out of the run of things, for the conversation was carried on in Persian, Hindustan, or Arabic indifferently, and pretty little Mrs. Jones was the only woman who eoaJd talk with the men.
 That all sorts of merry jest5 were sad, perhaps broader than would quite cyfi ay-il hrrf fac s and the loud laughter of the men. Sometimes they translated for our bene- fit and sometimes they would not, and never regretted moro my ignorance of the environments in which found my. sel'.
 remember, too, how Sir Henry Lay ard leased us-a,l iil good humor-by saying how incomparably more beautiful, more attractive altogether, was Mrs. Jones in her Eastern dress and childlike simplicity, than were Western women in their starch and stays.
 Another striking incident took placa that evening. Before dinner, and while ths King was out of the room, Prof. Vambery disappeared. Presently there glided in a wretched being all in rags and seeming dirt-a gaunt, wild looking creature. who stole in like 0 shadow and eank down in Q noisele-s bundle close to the wall by the door.
 When the King came in and saw this faklr he called out in @ voice of thunder: "Who Is this dog?"
 His face was really terrible. He drew back with look of disgust and rage that made him look like some wild animal rather than man.
 When Vambery revealed himself and explained that it was simply joke his royal wcath little subsided, but he ordered him to leave the room at once, and to have done with such detestable fooling.- Fortnightly Review.